


The Spiral of Relapse

by I_am_a_Ruin



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Anorexia, Anxiety, Comfort, Depression, Fighting, Insecurities, M/M, Mentioned Hazel Levesque - Freeform, Mentioned Jason Grace - Freeform, Mentioned Piper McLean, Negative Thoughts, Nico works himself into the ground, Overexercising, Panic Attacks, Relapse, anorexic Nico, getting triggered, healthy talking, in recovery, massive trigger warning, nrief, restriction, some light fluff at the end, talking it out, vague mention of a suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 14:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_a_Ruin/pseuds/I_am_a_Ruin
Summary: However, when Nico strained up on his tiptoes to press a quick peck on Will’s mouth before they headed off to their own cabins for the night, Will tilted his head up and away. Nico fell back on his heels to give Will a confused look. It wasn’t like Nico expected Will to kiss him every time Nico had the inclination, but Will was usually pretty much always trying to coax Nico to display more affection so the refusal was… out of character.Will smiled a little cheekily, shaking his head, “Bad boys don’t get kisses.”A flood of cold rushed through Nico’s blood, “What?” He felt breathless, like Will had punched him in the gut with all his might.





	The Spiral of Relapse

**Author's Note:**

> please please read the tags. This is a very heavy fic. The idea has been on my mind for almost a week now due to my own thought processes. I am in recovery as well and recently been thinking about how my own mind works during relapses. I felt this really applied to Nico and wanted to work all this out so... here's this fic. It's not quite a vent fic but... I don't know. A lot of his thinking pulls from my own mind so there's that.   
> Proceed with caution.  
> Completely unedited or beta'd so I apologize for mistakes and possibly sloppy writing? It was written majorly late at night... but it's heartfelt!

“Will, I had to,” Nico pointed out for the hundredth time that day with a frustrated eye roll. “Piper was  _ dying.  _ It was the fastest and safest way to get her to you. It’s not like I’m just out for a stroll every night looking for an excuse to shadow travel, okay?” 

“There’s always another way. She wasn’t that far from camp. There’s absolutely no reason you couldn’t have sent Jason to get me.” Will exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Don’t you think I tried? He was totally hysterical. That boy couldn’t even stand, let alone run to get help. And he definitely wasn’t going to leave his girlfriend alone to die. Besides, she was bleeding so badly… You saw her, Will. I could  _ feel  _ her life fading so quickly. There wasn’t another way. I saved her life, okay? Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. You should know that by now.” 

“No. Not you. You have made enough sacrifices, Nico.” Will shook his head emphatically. Nico sighed, letting his head fall against Will’s chest. He was never going to understand how Will cared so much about Nico. Cared about Nico the way Jason did about Piper. It didn’t entirely make sense. He wasn’t used to people yelling at him for damaging his health or risking his life. It was still a little disorienting. 

Will stood there holding him, and Nico could feel Will shaking. “Will, seriously. I’m okay. I did everything you said. I took a nap and drank lots of water. I’m really okay. So you can stop worrying.”

“No I can’t. I’ll never stop worrying about you, Death Boy.” Will had an affectionate, weirdly stern, smile turning up the corners of his mouth. Nico couldn’t stop the scoff at the nickname, pulling away. Will seemed to cheer up at least a little at knowing his “doctor’s orders” had been followed to a T. 

However, when Nico strained up on his tiptoes to press a quick peck on Will’s mouth before they headed off to their own cabins for the night, Will tilted his head up and away. Nico fell back on his heels to give Will a confused look. It wasn’t like Nico expected Will to kiss him every time Nico had the inclination, but Will was usually pretty much always trying to coax Nico to display more affection so the refusal was… out of character.

Will smiled a little cheekily, shaking his head, “Bad boys don’t get kisses.” 

A flood of cold rushed through Nico’s blood, “What?” He felt breathless, like Will had punched him in the gut with all his might.

“You’ve been very bad today, so you can go to bed without a goodnight kiss,” Will explained with a shrug before walking off to his cabin with a quick “Goodnight,” tossed over his shoulder. 

Nico couldn’t return the well wishing, didn’t even remember walking back to his cabin. He just was there (he actually might have shadow travelled which would be an incredibly irony), perched on the foot of his bed. His ears were buzzing and mind tilting with a slew of the old voices. The taunts had been quiet for so so long. He couldn’t remember how to shut them down, and they were so fucking loud, their whispers consuming him. 

_ You’re awful and he hates you. You heard, even he thinks so. You’re a bad boy. And bad boys don’t deserve food or sleep. Bad boys get punished. Go on, do it. Prove you’re strong like you think you are. Go on do it do it do it. Then he will know you aren’t bad anymore. Go on, you want breakfast right?  _

He wanted to press the palms of his hands into his ears, but the noise was in his head. Nothing he did was going to drown them out. Panic was coursing under his skin, prickly and discomforting. It made his hands shake and his legs stiff as he tried to stand to pace around his room. Walking used to help, didn’t it? 

He couldn’t remember couldn’t remember couldn’t remember it was so much too much he couldn’t breathe. They were right. Will even said so. He didn’t deserve food. 

He mentally tried to determine when he was allowed to eat again, not even cognizant of this repeat of past destructive behavior. The panic attack was taking over so much he couldn’t even see the wrongness behind his logic. If he went twenty four hours without eating, that’d make up for it, right? Then Will could think he was good again, that he had served his due. 

Even with a plan, the voices couldn’t be shut down. He found his fingernails scrabbling for purchase on his skin, finding it and just digging in as tight as possible. Grounding, holding himself together, or tearing himself apart, he wasn’t sure.

Gods, it hurt. Everything hurt. He just wanted to sleep, but that wasn’t allowed either. Normally when this kind of self-destructive urge flared up, Nico went to Will or even Jason. Sometimes Hazel when he was desperate. But he couldn’t tonight, because he was bad, awful, disgusting, unworthy. He had to prove himself, suffer alone, pay off before he could be deserving of comfort. 

He ended up collapsed on his bed, hands clamped over his headset with the loudest songs on his phone blasting at full volume. It wasn’t entirely enough to stave off the noise of the voices, but it helped enough for Nico to lay there and not attempt anything else. It was surprisingly easy to stay awake, despite the exhaustion aching in his bones. Even after all this time, shadow travel still wore him down more than he’d ever admit to Will Solace. Which was exactly why he wasn’t eating tomorrow or sleeping. He had been bad, been weak. 

He couldn’t even entirely remember why he shadow travelled at this point, just remembered the fury and heartbreaking concern on Will’s face when Nico had appeared in front of him and how selfish Nico had felt at that look. 

Daylight broke through the crack in Nico’s curtains and he dragged himself up out of bed. His body felt like a ton of bricks. He really had put on a lot of weight… 

That thought deterred him for quite awhile, leaving him very distracted in front of the mirror, pinching, tugging, stretching his skin to assess the damage and mold it into the shape he wished it was. How had he let it get this bad? He really needed to watch what he was eating again, gods. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, twisting and turning every which way in the mirror. How could Will even put up with such a fat blob? Maybe that was another reason Will didn’t want to kiss him last night. Will was just too scared to say it, to break fragile, pathetic Nico di Angelo. Well, Nico would prove he was tough and smart. He’d lose all that gross weight marring his perfect, perfect white bones and then Will would no longer be reluctant to kiss him. Fuck, this was going to take longer than Nico thought. He needed to get dressed and start training then. 

The morning got away from him as he trained for hours, straight through breakfast. Will didn’t come find him, of course. Will shouldn’t have to see Nico like this, see him all fat. Will deserved a perfect boyfriend. Jason and Percy stopped by for a while to spar with him before heading off to lunch. Nico promised to meet them down there in a few minutes, just wanted to ‘take out a few more dummies and warm down first,’ but he was lying through his teeth. He was prepared to explain that he just lost track of time, but it wasn’t really a big deal. He could just eat dinner later, should they get worried, but of course they didn’t. He hadn’t really expected they would. 

Nico’s stomach was complaining in the usual ways of aching and sometimes noisily grumbling, but he pushed through it with each slash of his Stygian sword. When his stomach couldn’t get him to give in, the pain travelled up his spine to that area of the top of his neck and back of his head. It was just this intense, awful pressure that made Nico dizzy and wishing for one of Will’s awesome massages. He wasn’t getting one of those. Not when he still had so much to improve. Really, he needed to basically change into a totally different person. Will should just date someone else, someone not broken or prickly, someone as kind and good as Will was. 

A hand on his shoulder was the first thing to even remotely put a dent in the haze Nico was stuck in, to even lower the volume of the voices cruel murmuring. Nico let the sword in his hand dangle next to his leg when he turned to face Will, panting hard as the exhaustion from how hard he’d been working. It took everything to not flinch away from this beautiful boy Nico was beyond lucky to have. He could feel himself staggering slightly, almost falling into Will. He really was so dizzy and tired. He hadn’t even had water because feeling bloated would just slow down his training. That was probably poor decision making on his part because he could feel his legs determining he was just too fat to hold up anymore and he crumpled into Will’s arms like a flimsy house of cards. 

Nico didn’t totally pass out, but he was definitely too out of it to be very much aware of what was going on. He just felt so weak, like he’d just shadow travelled for a week straight with no rest. Not so much like he was going to fade into oblivion, just… dead to the world. His heart was the only reassurance that he was still alive, thrumming hard in his throat and throwing itself against his ribs, almost trying to break through. It was so loud, he couldn’t make out anything anyone said to him. He couldn’t even remember where he was. And this was so scarily like a slightly different experience, it just made Nico more panicked. Had he done something stupid again? Oh gods, what if Will or Jason found him? This wouldn’t be like last time when he failed and woke up alone, still hurting deeply but glad to be alive and had to spend the rest of the week feverish and detoxing. 

He’d wake up to a grieving, confused Will Solace and the rest of his friends demanding to know why. But Nico couldn’t remember doing that. He hadn’t done that, had he? The more Nico became aware of his surroundings, the more he remembered and was able to relax as his heart rate slowed. No. He just overworked himself a little. This was no big deal. He allowed himself to sink into the bedsheets and breathe in the sterile air of the infirmary. The more he shifted though, trying to get comfortable, he felt the slight stinging tug of a needle on the inside of his elbow. Nico’s eyes flew open to investigate, adrenaline flushing his system at the sight of the IV. Oh gods, no. How many calories was in an IV again? This was not good. This was him being bad again. At this rate, Will might even break up with him. 

He saw someone hovering at the foot of his bed, engrossed in a clipboard. Will. His hands trembled a little, debating whether to alert Will to his being conscious. Before he could decide, Will looked up, a strange expression crossing his face. Nico couldn’t decide if it was relief or more anger.

“So much for the shadow travel not having any effect on you, huh, Death Breath?” Will sighed, a small smile quirking up his mouth. 

The easygoing tone settled something inside Nico, grounding. It was reassuring. Will and him were on good terms. 

Nico shook his head. “Not shadow travel.”

Will studied his face for a few moments and then his chart. “You’re probably right. Nico… Actually, you just seem to be extremely dehydrated. Care to explain?” 

Nico’s face flushed. He did not care to, actually. This was going to start a lecture. Especially as his voice of reason was finally coming back as it was no longer being drowned out by all of Nico’s insecurities and self-doubt. Something in Will’s face just reminded him of all the progress he had made and how ridiculous this relapse was. He couldn’t entirely understand what had set him off. How had this happened? How had it gone downhill so quickly?

“Nico?” Will asked again, voice trying to tug Nico out of his thoughts.

Realizing there was no getting out of this, Nico opened his mouth to explain, but words were failing him. He was unsure himself of what had happened. He tried to play back memories from the day before, searching for some sort of cause. Oh. Right. Fuck.

As he tried to get the words out, his voice shook, warbled. No, shit. There was no crying. That’d just make Will worry more, make him feel guilty and awful. Nico couldn’t do that to him. “I… think I relapsed a little.”

The look that crossed Will’s face was more painful, heartbreaking, than anything else that day. Will very quickly covered it with his doctor-professionality, but it still yanked at Nico’s emotions. “Gods, Nico. What happened?” Will said softly, moving forward to sit on Nico’s bed. He wasn’t holding Nico’s hand yet and Nico badly wished he would. 

“I-I don’t know how to… explain. Something you said yesterday, not that it’s your fault,” Nico hurriedly added just to be clear, safe, “kind of triggered me a bit. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. It’s so stupid.”

Will very quickly set aside his clipboard and picked up Nico’s hand (a flood of warm comfort overwhelming him at the contact leaving him just slightly giddy and a bit sleepy). “Hey, no. It’s not stupid, okay? And don’t apologize. You’ve been doing so good, this is so minor. We can handle this. You just gotta talk to me, please?”

Nico nodded slowly, still feeling awful because Will was so good and pure and understanding and Nico didn’t deserve him for a moment. “You said something like “Bad boys don’t deserve kisses?” and… like, obviously you have the right to not consent to things, I’m not saying that, okay? Like… if you don’t want to kiss me, I  _ can  _ handle it. It’s just… what you said? It’s something very like how my negative thoughts used to go and… it dragged all that back up. Like,  I’d tell myself I had been bad today, so I didn’t deserve food.” Nico shuddered, just saying those words out loud causing tinges of guilt and fear to spike like lightning in his fingertips, at the edges of his brain. “And I know that’s irrational, I do. Humans need food to survive, it’s not something to punish myself with. I just…” he dragged his free hand down his face, trying to regulate his breathing, “It just spirals so quickly, I don’t know how to stop it or rationalize my way out of it. And I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you because my mind was saying I had to…. I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense when I say it out loud, but I had to like prove I was good before I could talk to you?”

“So you thought in order to do that you… what? Couldn’t eat today?” Will asked. It wasn’t unkind, just… trying hard to understand. Nico appreciated his tone more than anything else. 

“More than that, I guess. See, once it started, more and more came back, you know? Like, I started forgetting what had even started it and thought it had to do with my weight too. That you were pulling away, that I was ‘bad’ because I was fat. And… yes, I know I’m a normal healthy weight now and my weight gain is very good, it can just be so hard to see sometimes. Especially on bad days.” Nico continued to elaborate, looking up at Will for some kind of idea of how his boyfriend was taking this information. 

“Okay. How are you feeling now?” Will’s voice was soft and gentle and everything Nico could ever need in the world. 

Nico was quiet for a moment to self assess, “Better. Still kind of awful. I don’t know… It’s like my reason is back, but there’s just a lot of guilt feeding into a depressive episode, I think?” 

Will nodded slowly, squeezing Nico’s hand slightly and still oozing comfort like it was rolling off his skin and into Nico’s fingers. Which it probably was in all actuality, “How can I help?”

Nico both hated and adored this question. He despised it because he very rarely had an answer and oftentimes there was a specific right answer but he didn’t have means to verbalize it. Not to mention how often  _ his  _ right answer didn’t always prioritize what needed to be done properly. He loved it even more though, because it was a perfect demonstration of how much Will cared and wanted to be helpful without assuming he knew exactly what to do. “I… Do you have time to just… lay here with me?”

Will smiled, “Yes. We aren’t very busy anymore. I have all day. But first, I need you to eat a small amount of ambrosia for me.”

Nico could feel that flare of panic at the prospect of consuming anything, especially an item he didn’t know the caloric make-up of. Those ugly whispers crept into his head, trying to make excuses for him to feed to Will. Somehow, Will seemed to see it in his face. Will stood, getting the slice of ambrosia for Nico to see.

“It’s just a tiny amount, to give you the strength the IV can’t. I promise it will not remotely hurt you. It’s healthier than lettuce. Your body really needs it, Nico, okay?”

Nico nodded, still feeling doubtful and unsure as he took the miniscule square into his own palm. The weight was reassuring and he was hungry. Not that it’d be likely to be even a little filling, but it really couldn’t hurt. He took a deep breath, letting his exhale send out those negative thoughts with the carbon dioxide. Both unhelpful things his body did not need. He could eat this. He popped it in his mouth before he could talk himself out of it, chewing and swallowing so he hardly had to taste it. Will’s smile radiated, actually brightening the room. Nico held out his arms, only feeling a little silly, for Will to keep up his promise. 

Will complied, snuggling into Nico’s side and curling his body to fit comfortably against Nico. Nico pressed his face into Will’s chest. 

“I love you, Nico di Angelo.” 

And Nico could only smile a little and let Will hold him. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you are struggling with any of the issues discussed in this piece, please try to talk to someone. Your well-being is so important.  
> Comments are greatly appreciated. I basically live for them!  
> Hope you're all having a wonderful day/night.


End file.
